Cracker Town

by WF Ranew

  He’d answer the man’s questions without incriminating anyone, most of all himself.

  Gordon told Ginger Gail what the man might want with him. Something about his crazy cousin Cleet and a family slain in Valdosta right after the cousin got out of the mental hospital.

  He didn’t think Ginger Gail knew much about that part of his past. He had masked much of himself throughout the years, although he’d slipped now and again in moments of sexual excitement and role play.

  Mitsy Elton’s death became a wake-up call on his behavior. In fact, her death disturbed him tremendously. He had to keep his youthful rage under wraps. Good thing his cousin Cleet was there. Else, the sheriff might have hauled Gordon off to jail. Or even Wallace. Except, one of the brothers would have gone to prison or a death sentence.

  But they had not. Had they?

  Mitsy’s death happened many years ago and long before Ginger Gail knew Gordon.

  At that point in his life, when he was fifteen, Gordon had been under the influence of Ulysses Everton for two years. Ulysses taught him a lot about hiding one’s emotions. Plying one’s urges on people, whether kissing men or doing other acts with them.

  Ulysses also led Gordon to Jesus.

  Gordon had gone along with Ulysses for the money and other things the man bestowed upon the lad. But in his heart, his soul, and especially in his groin, the preacher was a woman’s man.

  Ginger Gail became his woman.

  * * *

  After Gordon went somewhat bonkers on her, Ginger Gail moved some of her personal arsenal to the Fanning Springs house and locked all in a standup safe. In case of intruders, she kept a loaded semi-auto pistol by their bed and an over-under shotgun under the mattress frame on her side.

  “We’re locked and loaded for the law or whoever comes after you, sweetie,” she told Gordon. But really, she didn’t want Gordon getting to her guns.

  Ginger Gail had no intention of shooting at Red Farlow. Or any law officers who might eventually show up in Fanning Springs.

  No way.

  Her manfriend Gordon was another matter.

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Ginger Gail Gillis got up one morning and, clad only in flip flops, walked down the trail to the river’s edge. She favored this spot more than any other she’d known.

  No one was there to bother her; she enjoyed the time alone.

  She looked up the river toward the bend. Its languid tannic waters flowed by. Fish broke the surface in ripples. Birds chirped.

  Ginger Gail dropped her towel and stood there a moment. She moved her hands over her body, from her neck down over her freckled breasts, tummy, and back around her buttocks. Off in the distance, she heard a motorboat droning.

  Better hurry.

  She took a deep breath and jumped into the water. Shaking off the shock of cold, Ginger Gail opened her eyes to look around her at the river bottom, tangled vines and tree roots, and the iced-tea murkiness.

  She moved out into the river slightly, then kicked up to the surface and swam back to the bank.

  After stepping out of the muddy bottom, Ginger Gail toweled off and walked back up to the cracker house on the river.

  Time for coffee.

  * * *

  Ginger Gail Gillis never married Gordon Adan, even after her husband died. She and the preacher lived separately until moving down to Fanning Springs.

  After Gordon’s wife passed away, the door opened for the two long-time lovers to wed. Ginger Gail hesitated, and the preacher felt his marrying a church widow might raise questions among his congregants. That was Gordan to the core. What people thought of him made a big difference to his self-image.

  By then, Ginger Gail had her doubts about Gordon. At a young age, she’d fallen for the preacher man. He was tall and big and imminently huggable. He made love with a primal passion that pleased her all over. And, he was available for her in a way her husband Rubin never was.

  Ginger Gail had grown to be a woman at seventy who wanted more than Gordon Adan. Much more.

  She wanted Red Farlow. But alas, fifty years had gone by since her three-week affair with Red.

  * * *

  Ginger Gail rolled over and went back to sleep after Gordon got up before sunrise to drive up to Damville. It was Wednesday, and he had prayer meeting services in the evening.

  Ginger Gail walked back up to the house after her skinny dip and dropped her robe on the steps. She loved the bounce of her body, full of womanhood and femininity, round in the right places, and oh so freckled.

  She made coffee, carried the cup and toast out on the screened-in porch, and sat down in a big rocker. She gazed out over the Suwannee River, which she proclaimed as her own.

  The boat, likely the one she heard earlier, started its motor up. Looking north, she saw the fishing craft slowly making its way downriver. Likely, the two men in it looked for a good pool for fishing.

  Ginger Gail sat there.

  She regarded her life as successful. Still, one regret consumed her at that moment.

  Red Farlow.

  He was back in town, and he wanted to talk with Gordon.

  Gordon had become a problem years ago. They’d kept some distance for a long time, what, ten or twelve years? He was always a bit strange. How many Baptist ministers seduce a young woman in the choir? Probably a lot, she chuckled. But, really, don’t most ministers take their jobs pretty seriously? Bonking the redheaded soloist in the choir is not something the average, good preacher would do, even if they’d thought about it.

  It was only after Gordon’s wife died that Ginger Gail decided to give him another chance.

  Now, things were coming full circle.

  The preacher became very strange upon learning Red wanted to see him again.

  That got Ginger Gail thinking about her time with Red all those many years ago. Three weeks. Three wonderful weeks with a man who treated her like a lady. In and out of bed.

  He was smart, witty, romantic, erudite in a nice way, and one hell of a lover.

  Red. Big bear, lovable Red Farlow, so hungry and eager for love back then.

  The memories rolled through her head and stirred something deep within her. After a moment, she crooked a leg over each arm of the chair and, with her mind drifting to a perfect place in a perfect time with the perfect man, Ginger Gail pleasured herself.

  * * *

  But lingering in fantasyland wasn’t the solution to the current conundrum.

  She realized what had to be done. Gordon could be no part of it, even though Ginger Gail knew of her manfriend’s past sins. So many of them. So terrible she didn’t want to recall them and delve into how they came to happen.

  Perhaps it was time for Preacher Gordon to face up to his sins.

  She once loved Gordon, but more so, she enjoyed her physical connection with the man. That’s how it started. In the choir room of his church.

  She knew it would end, as all things die after a time. But she didn’t want to lose Gordon just yet. Not with the beauty and isolation and serenity of a house on a remote river in Florida. Or did she?

  Someone had finally connected Gordon to his murderous past. Red Farlow was coming for him.

  Could they condemn me for any of his horrible deeds?

  For that reason, Ginger Gail worried about Gordon going back to Damville for his church every week or so.

  Hell, he’d retired, so why drag out the work thing?

  She still owned her life insurance agency but had trained a niece to run it. Ginger Gail sent her to several insurance sales and management courses in grooming the younger woman for the job. In just a few years, the niece, Joanne Swanton, became a top sales agent for the company’s Southeast region.

  Ginger Gail was doing well, even as she sat there in her rocker over the river. Right then, though, she needed to get off her ass and move.

  And she had to think and figure when. The notion seemed complicated, and it certainly would put her out. She had to drive to Savannah to find the m
an.

  She would in the evening.

  Best keep Gordon away from it.

  Ginger Gail went into the house, took a shower, and got dressed. She threw clothes into an overnight bag, along with a handgun and her diary.

  Ginger Gail went out to her car.

  It was a four-hour drive from Fanning Springs to Savannah.

  She’d call Red on the way.

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Ginger Gail Gillis. Red knew her as Swanton, her maiden name. That was a while back.

  The fiery furnace of a woman burned into Red’s heart back in seventy-three. He enjoyed their brief time together. He could never forget Ginger Gail.

  Recently, he’d heard her name from Wallace Adan. Red would have hoped his onetime flame would have better sense than to hook up with Gordon Adan, a perverted preacher and, Red had become convinced, a killer.

  But he figured the slim pickings of qualified males in southwest Georgia might have driven her into the preacher’s arms.

  Speculation.

  When he answered the phone from an unknown number, he heard someone breathing. A moment passed before the person said anything, but the first thing in his mind was the caller had to be Ginger Gail.

  “Hello, Red,” she finally said.

  “Ginger Gail. A sweet voice from my past. How are you doing, lovely lady?”

  Her breathing seemed quick and indicated nervousness.

  “Hmmm. I’m fine. I do think of you often. How are you?” she asked.

  Red’s time with Ginger Gail boomed in his mind. He’d never forgotten her. Now, he watched as the mental movie of their relationship played out in his head. And heart.

  “I’m very well, thank you. But tell me, how did you come to call after, how long? Decades?” He knew, of course.

  “I can tell you precisely, but let’s not dwell on the fleeting past,” Ginger Gail said. “All I remember is that you drove back to Atlanta and never called me again.”

  Red thought back. No, he had called her. At least, he tried two or three times. She never answered nor returned his messages. But that was a limp reason to give, so he said nothing for a moment.

  “OK, I surrender to your memory, but you never left my thoughts, sweetie,” he finally said. “Most memorable was the night on the beach at Alligator Point.”

  “Yeah, and two nights later in your motel room in Thomasville. And almost every night after that for three weeks.”

  “Oh, yes.”

  What else could I say?

  “Red, I guess you are happy now. Hope you are,” Ginger Gail said, seemingly with deep conviction. “Those three weeks stand as the romantic high point of my life.”

  Red chuckled. Really?

  “Oh, come on now, Ginger Gail,” he said. “Surely you’ve lived a life with many great times and finer loves than me.”

  He heard her laugh. “Not really. But I can’t complain. I have to ask. Did you ever hook up with that lovely lady you told me about? The one who broke your heart after college. You were such a mushy mess over that gal when we met.”

  She remembered my life story.

  “Funny you should ask,” Red said. “The answer is yes. We found each other about the time I started looking her up, and she asked around for me. We’re married and living in Savannah.”

  Her breathing stopped a second.

  “Wonderful, wonderful,” she said. “Love does find a way, doesn’t it?”

  “I’m happy to agree with you on that,” he said.

  Red detected something difficult to discern in Ginger Gail’s voice. Perhaps it was the phone call and its fuzzy connection. He couldn’t see her face. With Ginger Gail, her face told everything. Or maybe she was reluctant to delve more into someone’s life in a moment of regret for having said and asked too much, too soon.

  “I’m glad for you, baby. I really am,” she said. “But you know, you should have moved to Bainbridge and gone to work for me. As my private insurance investigator.”

  That would have been a hoot. But no future.

  “Yeah, well, sweetheart. I actually put some thought into making you a permanent part of my life,” Red replied. “But one thing and another interceded. It’s not often a man finds a woman who can make him happy forever. I found two.”

  “Aww, Lordy, Red. You have my heart pumping and something else oozing besides,” she said. “You haven’t changed much in the romance department. Thank goodness.”

  Red had no idea why Ginger Gail called. He waited for her to broach the subject. For once, he let patience rule.

  Finally, she got down to her reason for reconnecting after all those years.

  “I need to speak with you, my friend,” she said. “I mean face-to-face. Something has gotten out of hand with my life. I think you may know who’s behind that.”

  “I see. Sure,” Red said. “When did you want to get together?”

  “Are you in Savannah now?”

  * * *

  They met at a coffee shop in the historic district. Red liked the place. He could have invited Ginger Gail to the beanery a block from his office but felt that might tread too close to home.

  Red arrived early and got a table. He ordered an espresso and waited.

  Ginger Gail glided by the window at the agreed-upon time and opened the shop’s door with a purpose. She spotted him immediately and smiled. He got up and walked to her.

  They moved right into each other and hugged. Ginger Gail stretched up and kissed him on the lips.

  Red marveled at his friend, who looked the same, save for some minor indications of aging.

  While Red no longer held a flame for Ginger Gail, he was glad Leigh wasn’t there to see her enthusiasm for seeing him again. Full disclosure, however, was in order, and he’d tell his wife everything later.

  She took Red’s hand and squeezed it. He led her to their table.

  “Have a seat, and I’ll get you a coffee,” he said. “Anything to eat? Scone, bagel, granola and yogurt?”

  “A latte, please, and a scone would be nice,” she said.

  He brought a scone by for each of them and Ginger Gail’s latte and another espresso. They ate and talked between bites mostly of her life’s ups and downs and his.

  Red excused himself to get fresh coffees.

  The preliminaries over, Ginger Gail looked at him when he returned. Her smile faded as she dabbed her eyes with a tissue.

  He set her latte down and had a seat.

  “Red, I feel like a traitor to a man who’s been with me for so long,” she said.

  He thought for a second she might be referring to him. She wasn’t.

  “Oh? Tell me more,” he said.

  Ginger Gail told him about the Reverend Gordon Adan, a man she fell in love with when she was in his church’s choir. A man she’d seduced years ago and with whom she carried on an affair since just after she was married. About her split with him and their reconnection after his wife died.

  But the reason she had to speak with Red grew from her meeting with Gordon’s brother, Wallace Adan.

  “I visit him in the nursing home about once a month,” she said. “Gordon had stopped seeing Wallace, even though he had several people in the church who lived there. He simply refused to visit his brother.”

  Ginger Gail dropped the bombshell. Wallace told her a lot about his family’s past. Most of it involved Gordon and his rather odd nature.

  “Red, suddenly, this strong woman became frightened,” she said. “The last week or so, Gordon has changed. He’s done this before. But of late, he’s gone quiet on me. That’s a bad sign for a man as gregarious as Gordon.”

  Red sipped his fresh, hot espresso. He looked down at the crema he’d just roiled with his lips.

  “Has he threatened you or anyone else?”

  Caught in mid-chew, Ginger Gail took a moment to answer. She swallowed, picked up her coffee, and took a sip.

  “He’s suddenly an enigma,” she said. “Gloomy and moody. But he hasn’t threatened
me, no. Why would he?”

  She put her cup on the table and slowly turned it in place.

  “Let me approach that question a different way,” Red said. “Many times, people don’t threaten overtly by saying, ‘I’m going to hurt you.’ But the change of mood may be an indication something is about to happen that could lead to a violent episode.”

  Ginger Gail wrinkled her brow. She looked down at her cup before responding.

  “How do you mean?” she asked. “I still don’t get a connection between mood shifts and threats.”

  Red thought back to his time with Randy and Walter Goings’s typed pages about his meeting with Wallace and Gordan Adan back in the early seventies. Red observed Ginger Gail. Suddenly, she’d seemed nervous. Her hands shook as she lifted the latte to her lips.

  Red decided to bore in on his point.

  “Ginger Gail, I’m going to tell you something that could enrage Gordon,” he said. “Maybe, maybe not. But I have a feeling this has something to do with the Goings family murders.”

  Red told her of Cleet’s long relationship with Goings as his counselor at Central State. He also related Walter Goings’s separate visits with Wallace and Gordon. Goings confronted each man with Cleet’s accusations in those meetings that one of them killed the Elton girl back in the fifties. The crime for which Cleet did eighteen years in the mental hospital.

  “I’ve read and listened to tape recordings of Cleet Wrightman’s counseling sessions,” Red said. “He’s convincing, not in denying that he killed the woman, but in trying to figure out if he did kill her.”

  Red continued. “He also recounted a vivid story about who murdered the young woman,” he said. “Cleet remembered having sex with her the day he sold a Bible to Mitsy Elton. His first time. And, he recalled witnessing her death through the front window as she was beaten and hacked to death with a meat cleaver. But he’s detached from the scene, outside, banging on the window screen and yelling for the assailant to stop.”

  Ginger Gail put down the cup and raised her hands to her mouth. A tear rolled from her eye down her left cheek. Others followed.